Craig Kimbrel 2024

[baltfan]

They have a club option for Kimbrel. He could be pretty devastating with Bautista next year. 

[Rbiggs2525]

Kimbrel is an elite arm. He was laughing after the ground ball double play made it by Holiday. Then he proceeded to absolutely dominate the next 2 batters. The wheels may fall eventually but he is a difference maker.

[Frobby]

On 4/12/2024 at 9:08 AM, Tony-OH said:

Kimbrel continues to throw 2.6 MPH slower than last year, but his vertical movement is the best of his career so far. His curveball has been unhittable this year and has the most horizontal movement of his career. His command has been outstanding on both of his offerings.

Maybe Kimbrel has found that he has more command at this velocity or maybe he just needs warmer weather to "warm up" but for now, the results have pretty amazing since the blown save.

 

 

Even the blown save was a bloop hit that fell between Gunnar and Hays, followed by a failure to hold the runner on base.  

I’m sure Kimbrel will have his ups and downs, but he’s throwing strikes and missing a lot of bats.  I’m very comfortable with him as our closer right now.  
 

[dystopia]

13 hours ago, Rbiggs2525 said:

Kimbrel is an elite arm. He was laughing after the ground ball double play made it by Holiday. Then he proceeded to absolutely dominate the next 2 batters. The wheels may fall eventually but he is a difference maker.

This makes it sound like it was Holliday’s fault when it was really due to positioning. 

[Tony-OH]

58 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Even the blown save was a bloop hit that fell between Gunnar and Hays, followed by a failure to hold the runner on base.  

I’m sure Kimbrel will have his ups and downs, but he’s throwing strikes and missing a lot of bats.  I’m very comfortable with him as our closer right now.  
 

I have to agree. The command has been really surprising. He's really hitting his spots with his pitches. Now it would be nice to have a shutdown 8th guy that doesn't have to be platooned. I'm wondering of Coulombe might be the best fit right now? Cano is still throwing the ball well, but he's struggled a bit early on against lefties. Hyde came out pretty quick yesterday when a lefty came up, and that tells me if Coulombe is available, he's coming in with lefties coming up in close games in the 8th.

I still wish we had a shutdown 8th inning guy with Coulombe an Cano able to match up in the 7th.

[jabba72]

15 hours ago, Ven6 said:

Back up to 95-96 today. Glad to see that. 

Agree was about to post Kimbrel's velocity has somehow come back. Huge if true. 

Has a 16.5 K9 so far in 6 appearances. Thats very Bautista-like. 

[Spy Fox]

25 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

I still wish we had a shutdown 8th inning guy with Coulombe an Cano able to match up in the 7th.

I think this is pretty likely to be our primary midseason trade acquisition this year. 

[interloper]

13 minutes ago, Spy Fox said:

I think this is pretty likely to be our primary midseason trade acquisition this year. 

I sure hope so. Been banging this drum since the offseason. 

[RZNJ]

16 hours ago, Malike said:

2 of them were bloops and the other was a groundball that looked like it could have been knocked down at least by a more experienced 2B.

A ground ball at 105.9 mph.  He takes two steps and the ball is 6 feet away from him when it’s passing him.   If he was Superman and could get from that position to completely prone in 0.0 seconds he might have gotten a glove on it.

https://www.mlb.com/video/william-contreras-singles-on-a-ground-ball-to-right-fielder-colton-cowser?q=GamePk %3D [747056] AND PitchSpeed %3D {{ 36%2C 105 }} Order By Timestamp DESC&cp=MIXED&p=0

P.S.  That ball had a XBA of .490!

 

Edited April 15 by RZNJ

[dystopia]

He somehow has a negative FIP. 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/kimbrcr01.shtml

[Frobby]

36 minutes ago, dystopia said:

He somehow has a negative FIP. 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/kimbrcr01.shtml

Perhaps we should bring Kimbrel into a game we’re losing, and see if he can take runs off the board!

It’s because FIP is based on certain components and ratios, not real world baseball.  

FIP = [(13*HR +  3*BB - 2*K’s)/IP] + C, where C is a constant that renders league FIP for the time period in question equal to league ERA for the same period. 

Kimbrel has not issued a walk or given up a homer, and has struck out 11 in 6 innings.  So the bracketed part of the equation is -3.67.  I guess C = 3.25 right now. 

[SteveA]

1 hour ago, RZNJ said:

A ground ball at 105.9 mph.  He takes two steps and the ball is 6 feet away from him when it’s passing him.   If he was Superman and could get from that position to completely prone in 0.0 seconds he might have gotten a glove on it.

https://www.mlb.com/video/william-contreras-singles-on-a-ground-ball-to-right-fielder-colton-cowser?q=GamePk %3D [747056] AND PitchSpeed %3D {{ 36%2C 105 }} Order By Timestamp DESC&cp=MIXED&p=0

P.S.  That ball had a XBA of .490!

 

That means that 51% of the time it should be converted to an out.   

[BohKnowsBmore]

1 hour ago, jabba72 said:

Agree was about to post Kimbrel's velocity has somehow come back. Huge if true. 

Has a 16.5 K9 so far in 6 appearances. Thats very Bautista-like. 

You could even say Kimbrel-like

His career K/9 is 14.2, and he's had multiple seasons at or above that mark for a whole season.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/kimbrcr01.shtml

[BohKnowsBmore]

13 minutes ago, SteveA said:

That means that 51% of the time it should be converted to an out.   

Well, I think it's fully dependent on fielder positioning at that point. There are a bunch of gappers and line drives that have no chance of being caught in a given situation that will have xAVG of .800 or .900 because in other situations fielders are positioned in a way that catches that given launch angle/direction/exit velocity combination.

[interloper]

1 minute ago, RZNJ said:

That’s not my understanding of the stat.   I think you’re talking about hit probability which is different.

Even if that was true, it implies that a batting average of .500 is, like, not that good. Lol.